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ELITE LIBERAL TEA PARTY WITH GEORGE SOROS IN SOUTH AFRICA
ELITE LIBERALE TEE PARTYTJIE MET GEORGE SOROS IN SUID-AFRIKA

(English and Afrikaans)

Those Elite liberals do not have a mandate or the power to decide on our Self-determination in South Africa.

Just look at their expensive tea parties – – – where is all this money of IDASA? Not in South Africa or Africa, perhaps around those tables …..

In a 26 March 2013 press statement, the Executive Director of The Institute for Democracy in Africa (Idasa), Paul Graham, announced that the venerable South African democratisation and rights organisation would be closing. Idasa has been in existence for over twenty years, played an important role at the end of apartheid and is a major loss to civil society in South Africa. BUT, Graham explained in his press release that the collapse of Idasa was due to the inability to “garner the financial support necessary to continue its work in a sustainable manner”. This fits neatly into the common law myth that international donors are reducing funding and that resources are drying up in South and Southern Africa. But, in fact, this is nothing but a myth.

What kind of money is involved?

His “Open Society Foundation South Africa” is written all over and the teacups are filled with innocent people’s blood. He is using South Africans to promote his Failed Communism. Yes Communism has been failed in the Eastern block communist countries. During 1994 the liberals were deeply involved

Names at the Dakar Negotiations and a nice holiday in Africa:

Struggles for popular democracy are profound threats to established elites. In many democratic transitions, these threats have been dissipated by the promotion of polyarchy as the new dispensation. What has occurred in such contentious transitions (such as South Africa) has been an attempt to construct hegemony via a reformulation of the mode of political rule: from the overtly coercive (such as apartheid) to a more consensual-based order. The result has been to pre-empt fundamental economic changes that may arise through any popular alternatives and instead, preserve the extant economic structures, albeit with necessary changes that incorporate fractions of the new emerging elite. Co-option of the democratisation movement into the structures of polyarchical democracy performs this task. Such an arrangement is the political counterpart to neo-liberalism, with the ‘visible hand of the voter’ working alongside the mythical meta-physical ‘market’.”

South Africa’s elite transition from apartheid to polyarchy provides a devastating example of the power of capitalism to penetrate and dismantle a vibrant movement demanding massive social change and effectively harmonise them into a neoliberal social order. As Ian Taylor reports, “[o]ne of the most active groups within the change industry” in South Africa was the Institute for a Democratic Alternative for South Africa — a group that later became known as the Institute for Democracy in South Africa. The cofounders of this Institute, van Zyl Slabbert and Alex Boraine, represented what might be considered the “compassionate face of liberalism,” and prior to setting up their Institute (in 1986), both been part of the “corporate-funded Progressive Federal Party, an organisation that ‘bore the Oppenheimer imprint from the start’.”

Despite their elite backgrounds, Slabbert and Boraine had initially failed to garner foreign support from the US leading liberal foundations, and it was only when they were introduced to George Soros, who immediately decided to support their venture, that the equally well-endowed American foundations reconsidered working with them. Slabbert recalled:

We wanted $150,000 and he signed a cheque of $75,000. In the lift, Boraine and I passed the cheques to and fro in disbelief. Soros did not ask for any guarantee and said, in passing, that we could send him a report if we wished. We obtained the rest of the money from the ever-reliable Scandinavians and the Friedrich Naumann Stiftung.

From that day on, the Institute for Democracy in South Africa (IDASA) became a favored recipient of foreign aid, obtaining lucrative grants from bodies like the US Agency for International Development, and smaller albeit important funding from organizations like the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Little surprise then that this mediating organization, IDASA, played a key role in smoothing the transition from apartheid, and indeed… the dissemination of ideology in favour of the neo-liberal project has continued unabated in the post-apartheid era. In this period, IDASA has advanced ideas that seem to propagate the notion that keeping the people away from the real levers of power i.e. the economy, is a “good thing.”

The Open Society Foundation of South Africa happens to be another of George Soros’s polyarchal ventures, and Soros recruited Slabbert to become the founding chair of this organization when it was founded in 1993. In addition to Ramphele, two other notable members of the Foundation’s board of directors are the editor of Financial Mail, Barney Mthombothi (who is board member of the democracy-manipulating International Press Institute), and Jody Kollapen, the former chairperson of South Africa’s principal human rights body the SA Human Rights Commission. Incidentally, Kollapen is a board member of IDASA and is the chair of the Legal Resources Centre. Judge Fikile Bam, a former board member of the Open Society Foundation of South Africa, served as a director of the Legal Resources Centre in Port Elizabeth in 1985, and is presently a board member of the Centre for Development and Enterprise, a think tank that focuses on “development issues and their relationship to economic growth and democratic consolidation,” which received a grant from the NED in 2006.

Since it was formed in 1995 “with core funding from South African businesses,” the Centre for Development and Enterprise has been headed by Ann Bernstein, who had previously served as the executive director of the Urban Foundation from 1989 until its demise in 1995. More recently, from 2005 until 2006, Berstein served as a Reagan Fascell Democracy Fellow at the NED. Given the openly pro-corporate polyarchal agenda of Berstein’s Centre it is intriguing to note that their board of directors includes Ishmael Mkhabela. On top of being a board member of the conservative South African Institute of Race Relations, Mkhabela serves as the chairperson of the Steve Biko Foundation, which was ostensibly set up to commemorate the murder of a revolutionary activist and thinker, Steve Biko. Surely Biko himself would be most distraught with the manner by which his name is used to deflect criticism from polyarchal elites. Writing in 1970, before his murder at the hand of the state (in 1977),

Biko said: Nowhere is the arrogance of the liberal ideology demonstrated so well as in their insistence that the problems of the country can only be solved by a bilateral approach involving both black and white. This has, by and large, come to be taken in all seriousness as the modus operandi in South Africa by all those who claim they would like a change in the status quo. Hence the multiracial political organisations and parties and the “nonracial” student organisations, all of which insist on integration not only as an end goal but also as a means.

Another tea party in South Africa:

During 1997, George Soros, intent on expanding his polyarchal ambitions in Africa, formed the Open Society Foundation for Southern Africa to work in ten Southern Africa countries, and again Slabbert helped him set up his latest philanthropic behemoth. The current deputy chair of this foundation is the wife of Max Sisulu, Elinor Sisulu, who is the media and advocacy manager of the Johannesburg office of the NED-funded Crisis Coalition of Zimbabwe, “which she was instrumental in establishing in 2004.”

In addition, Reginald Matchaba-Hove, the former chair of the Open Society Foundation for Southern Africa, sits on the steering committee of the NED’s World Movement for Democracy (sitting alongside IDASA executive director, Paul Graham), and he is the chair of the NED-backed Zimbabwe Election Support Network. Two other NED-connected board members of Soros’s democracy-manipulating foundation include Godfrey Kanyenze, who “served for a long time” as the director of the NED-funded Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, and Immaculée Birhaheka, “one of the Congo’s leading human rights activists,” who was the winner of the NED’s 2006 democracy award and is the co-founder and president of the NED-funded Promotion and Support for Women’s Initiatives.

IDASA

Data drawn from an OECD database clearly demonstrates that in most Southern African countries, aid has risen dramatically since 2002. In fact, in South Africa aid has more than trebled making it one of the fastest growing industries in the country. Looking at OECD data (the OECD QWIDS database), aid to Southern Africa increased in all but two countries, Angola and Mozambique, between 2002 and 2011. Aid disbursements to Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Zimbabwe are all up over 340%. And disbursements to Swaziland increased almost 800%.

More importantly, donor reported spending in South Africa increased 348% this decade – an increase from US$337 million to US$1.2 billion in 2011. It is notable that this is not due to a once off spike in spending. In 2002 aid disbursed to South Africa was US$338 million, in 2005 US$638 million, in 2008 US$1.1 billion and in 2011, US$1.2 billion. This is a notable increase despite the financial crisis. So the question is: How is it possible that if funds are increasing to Southern Africa and if donors are committed to democracy and civil society that Idasa fails due to a lack of funds. And he added: My analysis is that Idasa and many other African civil society organisations make two fundamental mistakes: Firstly, they have trusted the ‘good intentions’ of foreign donors without lobbying for their specific organisational interests and secondly, they have mistaken rhetoric on democratisation for action. What this has meant is that instead of actively lobbying for funds for African civil society, donor officials are left to decide where to put the money without pressure from African civil society organisations. Furthermore, the Human Rights Watch manages to raise a US$100 million endowment from George Soros and African human rights organisations are now barely visible. With the demise of Idasa it seems now we will increasingly rely on international NGOs to protect democracy in Africa.

Idasa’s leadership will tell you it failed because funds dried up. Really? How is that possible? But this is misleading. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development reports that between 2006 and 2011 official development assistance to South Africa increased by 40%. During the same period, governments and donors made repeated commitments to support civil society and accountability in Southern Africa.

IDASA (1987-2013)

It had, unlike many, survived the transition to democracy in 1994 by reinventing itself under Wilmot James and – briefly – Mamphela Ramphele, with new programmes on budget process, public opinion and parliamentary monitoring. This led to advances in budget transparency and rights-based budgeting, setting new global standards, and work with Kader Asmal on a lasting parliamentary disclosure regime for outside financial interests. A gap in parliamentary oversight was filled by Idasa’s offspring, the Parliamentary Monitoring Group.

Founded by former politicians Frederik van Zyl Slabbert and Alex Boraine in 1987 as the Institute for a Democratic Alternative in South Africa, Idasa has a proud place in South Africa’s history books for its convening of the Dakar meeting of ANC exiles and nationalists from home, an early step in talks to end apartheid. Idasa’s foremost capability was knowing who needed to be in the room and then how best to facilitate dialogue, a trait once integral to this country’s political DNA, now faded, as Marikana showed so catastrophically.

So, if Idasa can fall, then what hope for the many other organisations that are in crisis? After all, with its customary pragmatism, Idasa had under Paul Graham’s careful stewardship found “new markets” across the continent in the past decade. But in developing new programmes that linked the democratic process with socioeconomic outcomes, in other words, procedural democracy with substantive issues of equality and development, it may well have overestimated the sophistication of the donor community, which prefers to pigeonhole organisations in neat ­little boxes.

Complexity

Idasa grew exponentially during the mid-2000’s, doubling its budget and its size, from 80 to 160 full-time staff – just in time for the 2008 global economic crisis. It was hit by a perfect storm. Donors slashed budgets, especially to countries deemed sufficiently strong and middle-income and exchange-rate fluctuations messed with the best-laid budget plans. Moreover, now that it was “re-granting” to partners around the continent, Idasa underestimated the complexity as well as the cost of doing so, while, as a consequence of tighter budgets, it was losing some of its most effective staff at the worst possible time. In response to this crisis in the funding of non-governmental organisations, it is tempting to say that civil society should adapt and find a way of living without foreign grants. This is fine in principle, but in practice there is no tradition of philanthropic grant-making in South Africa, least of all for democracy work, from which most corporates shy – except, that is, when secretly filling the bank accounts of the ANC or the Democratic Alliance.

Corporate leaders are quick to complain about the infirmities of the democratic system and the consequent political risk, but they are very slow to fund organisations willing to work independently on issues of accountability and transparency. Today’s johnny-come-lately organisations pontificate about money, politics and the arms deal, but it was Idasa’s work on these issues 10 years ago that ensured that they got the public prominence they deserved. Critics of Idasa, especially within the nationalist wing of the ruling party, who liked to try to write us off as “liberals”, will be quietly rejoicing. Idasa always had enemies across the political spectrum. This was a sure sign that it was doing something right.

But Idasa’s rich and important past couldn’t secure its future. After 27 years, the organisation is winding up its affairs. On Tuesday, a final liquidation order was granted in the North Gauteng High Court. Court papers revealed that by December 2012, Idasa had accumulated losses amounting to a staggering R26,266,137. Directors reportedly believed that the organisation would weather 2013 thanks to projected donations of R114,279,773, but these apparently did not come through in time.

it’s far easier said than done to suggest that NGOs shift their targets away from international funders. Where will the funds come from to replace these? The South African government does fund NGOs, but it generally gives preference to certain specific issues which fit within a wider agenda: currently, early childhood development, for instance. (In a tacit acknowledgement of the debt it owes NGOs, however, this year the Western Cape social development department announced that the lion’s share of its budget would go to NGOs: almost R900 million.) The Lotto disburses more money in South Africa than any individual donor, but tales of administrative breakdowns and bureaucratic nightmares are routine.

Then there’s the private sector. The B-BBEE Code of Good Practice suggests that businesses making over R5 million turnover a year should be contributing 1% of their net profit after tax to “socio-economic development”. In practice, this creates a pot of about R7 billion annually, estimates the funding expert. She thinks that more pressing questions should be asked about what wealthy elite individuals (Patrice Motsepe aside) are doing with their money.

GEORGE SOROS:

Propelled by his father’s notion that money is a means and not an end, Soros has stated that his philanthropy is oriented towards providing individuals with the ability to become better informed and make better decisions. It is therefore not surprising that his early philanthropic efforts included providing support for black South African students and the establishment of Central European University as a Western-style institution in his home city of Budapest. Much of his subsequent philanthropy, including the Open Society Institute, should be understood in terms of efforts to shift public policy debates through the stimulation of critical thinking and the encouragement of governmental openness and transparency. Soros’ philanthropic endeavors began in 1979 with support for students in South Africa and dissidents in the Soviet Union.

Soros Charitable Foundation had net assets of $90,000,000 in 2010. Its sole purpose is as a funding vehicle supporting low-income housing and microloans in South Africa.

ANC

2 August 2013 : by Gregory Solik

Ever since the now-defunct Institute for Democracy in Africa (Idasa) took the ANC and other political parties to court, unsuccessfully, in 2005, South Africa has been promised a debate on the regulation of private party funding. In the Idasa case, the ANC stated in its court papers that it was “committed to the initiation and passage of such legislation in Parliament”, which is why Idasa did not appeal the high court ruling. Then, at Polokwane in 2007, the ANC resolved to “champion the introduction of a comprehensive ­system of public funding of representative political parties … as part of strengthening the tenets of our new democracy. This should include putting in place an effective regulatory architecture for private funding of political parties … The incoming NEC [national executive committee] must urgently develop guidelines and policy on public and private funding, including how to regulate investment vehicles.” Despite this promise, when South Africa holds its fifth democratic general elections in less than nine months we will have no idea how much money each party has received from private individuals, large corporations and foreign governments, or how much money each party has spent on the elections. It seems as though there is no issue that creates solidarity across party lines like secret funding.

After almost eight years of near silence, the MyVoteCounts campaign tried to reignite this issue last year. Building on the work of other activists and organisations concerned with political and social justice, MyVoteCounts wrote to Parliament and all represented political parties calling for appropriate legislation to ensure transparency and accountability in the public and private funding of political parties. A similar request was detailed in a widely supported memorandum sent to the speaker of Parliament and personally accepted by the National Council of Provinces chairperson, Mninwa Mahlangu, in August last year at the People’s Power, People’s Parliament conference. MyVoteCounts also reached out to the Independent Electoral Com­mission (IEC), a chapter nine, independent institution. The commission is critical to the operation of South Africa’s electoral system and is specifically mandated to undertake and promote research into electoral matters, including campaign finance, and report to the National Assembly.

We believe such legislation is a constitutional imperative, as required by the right of access to inform­ation in section 32, the right to just administrative action in section 33, as well as the principles of public administration in section 195 of the Constitution, read against the backdrop of the rule of law and other constitutional values. This is different from the legal strategy employed by Idasa, and it builds on the corruption jurisprudence that the Constitutional Court has developed since then. But what option do citizens have when Parliament fails to do what it has promised? There are two important points.

First, this and other pickets and debates facilitated by MyVoteCounts was an attempt to make democracy work. Although the Constitution goes a long way to safeguarding the rights of individuals and upholding the rule of law, we are yet to see democratic institutions functioning as they should. For example, we are still figuring out how chapter nine institutions, which are meant to support democracy; constituency representatives; portfolio committees and the National Council of Provinces can best harness political competition to establish a system of government that can organise, check, balance and diffuse power effectively.

What do you do when you have been informed that party funding has been “on the agenda of the chief whip’s forum” since December last year? Or when the IEC refuses to take a position on campaign finance based on a narrow interpretation of its constitutional duty? After a full year of engaging with Parliament and the IEC we sent a letter of demand on June 4 this year putting the speaker of the National Assembly, the chairperson of the National Council of Provinces, the ministers of justice and constitutional development and of home affairs on terms.

The letter requests that Parlia­ment, in conjunction with and, to the extent appropriate, the national executive, publish a comprehensive timetable for the introduction of legislation to regulate ­private donations to political parties. MyVoteCounts wants comprehensive reform of the funding of political parties to make them open and transparent, responsive and neutrally funded to try to limit influence by those with special interests. According to the letter, if no such response was given by July 24 we would be forced to take court action against Parliament. We received a response from the speaker informing us that Parlia­ment has discharged its constitutional duty to regulate private funding with the Public Funding of Represented Political Parties Act. Furthermore, he said, the issue was a party-political matter. This is no answer. The speaker and the chairperson of the National Council of Provinces are the elected representatives and spokespersons of each house of Parliament. In matters concerning the constitutional and other obligations of Parliament, correspondence is addressed to the speaker and the chairperson in their official capacities and not to each of the 490 MPs.

The second point is that we must treat the issue of money in politics as a social-justice issue rather than just one of corruption. As a fellow political-reform advocate, Dan Weeks, has argued, when political parties come to rely on the financial support of a few – and not just on the votes of a majority – to win and maintain power, public accountability and internal party democracy are undermined. This affects service delivery and the struggle for a more equal society. Public funding of political parties, as stipulated in article 236 of the Constitution and codified in the Public Funding of Represented Political Parties Act, currently accounts for only a small fraction of the total funds parties raise. The rest – amounting to hundreds of millions of rands a year, all of it undisclosed – comes from private sources.

Research by the Open Society Foundation has shown that private donations to parties for election spending increased from about R100-million in 1994 to R550-million in 2009 and will increase again next year. South Africa’s major political party funding scandals include the arms deal in 1999 (worth between R30- and 70-billion), Oilgate in 2004 (worth about R11-million) and the Chancellor House deal with Eskom and Hitachi Power Africa (valued at R38-billion). The Gupta family funding (said to run into millions) is only the latest saga.

Because parties rely so heavily on these donations, there is always the possibility that some, although not all, wealthy individuals and corporations will insist that the political debt be repaid by tenders, positions or favourable economic policies. It is difficult to monitor this because it is shrouded in absolute secrecy. Should we cap campaign expenditure? What should maximum donations be? What principles can we agree on and what legal structures do we want? What about a democracy fund? Donors – a tiny minority of influential people and companies – ­cannot become stakeholders in the affairs and policies of a party if we believe in a strong, independent and free society. Donors give money to buy influence. They don’t fund parties to come up with brilliant ideas to solve global inequality. Secret party funding is a major source of corruption. Making this transparent and regulated may not stop all corruption but it will make it more difficult to conduct; it will empower citizens to hold politicians to account.

Henry Thoreau said: “There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.” As we approach the elections, this is arguably the most important electoral question: Where does the money come from? How this question is answered will depend on whether we can make democracy work.
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